A legislative audit has found that Lehigh Valley motorists had the second highest number of claims against the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation arising from accidents due to poor road maintenance.

The study showed that there were $13 million in claims outstanding in Lehigh, Northampton and Schuylkill counties, in PennDOT's District 5-0, in February 1985.

As a result of the maintenance problems, the study by the bipartisan Legislative Budget and Finance Committee said that the state has paid out more than $40 million to settle lawsuits and claims filed by motorists in the past five years.

The report, issued yesterday, also outlines proposed changes that could reduce the state's financial burden due to tort laws that it said often force the state to pay more than its fair share of legal judgments arising from accidents in which maintenance is a factor.

During the past five years, according to the report, 20,400 claims have been filed against the state. The claims range from payments related to dangerous conditions on highways, repairs from tar and chip damage, paint damage, and damage due to potholes.

Settlements or judgments of the claims range in average from $165 for paint repairs to $20,933 for judgments related to injuries caused by potholes in roads.

The state's liability has arisen most often, the report said, from missing, obscured or inadequate signs; potholes, dips and other pavement deformities; shoulder drop-offs; and slippery pavements, due mostly to ice.

District 6-0, which includes Philadelphia and its suburban counties, had the most claims, an estimated $42 million of the $106 million claimed statewide as of the February 1985 cutoff used in the report.

The study said that problems with signs was the biggest factor in the claims filed against the state, and that "nearly all claims associated with obscured stop signs and missing curve warning signs involved serious injuries."

John Zogby, deputy secretary for safety administration in PennDOT, acknowledged the problems in an appearance before the committee.

He said that PennDOT has a policy of replacing missing or knocked down stop signs within four hours of their being reported, and has given atop priority to inventorying and replacing the missing, or inadequate, curve warning signs. In addition, he said the department is developing a computerized sign inventory.

Sen. Clarence Bell, R-Delaware, chairman of the committee, criticized the department for its maintenance priorities, which he said have resulted in the claims being filed against the state.

"Nobody's penalized. It's business as usual," Bell said of the response by regional offices to the maintenance problems. "If you operated a business like that, how long would you have insurance?" he asked.

Spencer A. Manthrope, chief counsel for the department, said PennDOT pays "a tremendous amount of claims we shouldn't" due to the laws that require defendants in lawsuits to pay the portion of claims other defendants can't pay.

He said the legal principal, joint severability, should be changed to not require one party to pay when another can't meet the damages meted out in a court action.

Manthrope used as an example a liability case that determined one party was liable for 80 percent of the liability claimed, and PennDOT the remaining 20 percent. If the chief party could not pay all of the 80 percent, the law requires that PennDOT pay its 20 percent plus the remainder of the liability the other party cannot meet.

He said this is common when motorists carry the minimum of $15,000 liability on their auto insurance, and after being involved in an accident are sued and found liable for hundreds of thousands of dollars, but don't have the money to pay the judgment.